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in fountains, twirl in eddies, or flow along a uniform bed. It may, moreover, be employed to turn wheels, lift hammers, grind corn, or drive piles. But all the energy exhibited by the water during its descent is merely the parcelling out and distribution of the original energy which raised it up on high. In this precise sense is the energy of man and animals the parcelling out and distribution of an energy originally exerted by the sun.

But the question is not yet exhausted. The water which we used in our first illustration produces all the motion displayed in its descent, but the form of the motion depends on the character of the machinery interposed in the path of the water. Thus also the primary action of the sun's rays is qualified by the atoms and molecules among which their power is distributed. Molecular forces determine the form

which the solar energy will assume. In the one case this energy is so conditioned by its atomic machinery as to result in the formation of a cabbage; in another case it results in the formation of an oak. So also as regards the reunion of the carbon and the oxygen in the animal the form of their reunion is determined by the molecular machinery through which the combining energy acts. In one case the germ determines the formation of a man, in another the formation of a frog. All the philosophy of the present day tends to show that it is the directing and compounding, in the organic world, of forces belonging equally to the inorganic, that constitute the mystery and the miracle of vitality.

In discussing the material combinations which result in the formation of the human organism, it is impossible to avoid taking side glances at the phenomena of consciousness and thought. Science has asked daring questions, and will, no doubt, continue to ask such. Problems will assuredly present themselves to men of a future age, which, if enunciated now, would appear to most people as the direct offspring of insanity. Still, though the progress and development of science may seem to be unlimited, there is a region beyond her reach a line with which she does not even tend to inosculate. Given the masses and distances of the planets, we can infer the perturbations consequent on their mutual attractions. Given the nature of a disturbance in water, air, or ether, we can infer from the properties of the medium how its particles will be affected. In all this we deal with physical laws, and the mind runs freely along the line which connects the phenomena, from beginning to end. But when we endeavour to pass, by a similar process, from the region of physics to that of thought, we meet a problem not only beyond our present powers, but transcending any conceivable expansion of the powers we now possess. We may think over the subject again and again, but it eludes all intellectual presentation. The origin of the material universe is equally inscrutable. Thus, having exhausted science, and reached its very rim, the real mystery of existence still looms around us. And thus it will ever loom ever beyond the bourne of man's intellect — giving

the poets of successive ages just occasion to declare that

"We are such stuff

As dreams are made of, and our little life

Is rounded by a sleep."

Still, presented rightly to the mind, the discoveries and generalisations of modern science constitute a poem more sublime than has ever yet addressed the human imagination. The natural philosophers of to-day may dwell amid conceptions which beggar those of Milton. Look at the integrated energies of our world, the stored power of our coal-fields ; our winds and rivers; our fleets, armies, and guns. What are they? They are all generated by a portion of the sun's energy, which does not amount to 2.300.000.000 of the whole. This is the entire fraction of the sun's force intercepted by the earth, and we may convert but a small fraction of this fraction into mechanical energy. Multiplying all our powers by millions of millions, we do not reach the sun's expenditure. And still, notwithstanding this enormous drain, in the lapse of human history we are unable to detect a diminution of his store. Measured by our largest terrestrial standards, such a reservoir of power is infinite; but it is our privilege to rise above these standards, and to regard the sun himself as a speck in infinite extension a mere drop in the universal sea. We analyse the space in which he is immersed, and which is the vehicle of his power. We pass to other systems and other suns, each pouring forth energy like our own, but still without

infringement of the law, which reveals immutability in the midst of change, which recognises incessant transference or conversion, but neither final gain nor loss. The energy of Nature is a constant quantity, and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the applications of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never-varying total, sacrificing one if he would produce another. The law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves -- magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude — asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may invest their energy in flora and faunæ, and flora and faunæ may melt in air—the flux of power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, while the manifestations of physical life, as well as the display of physical phenomena, are but the modulations of its rhythm.

JOHN CHURTON COLLINS: SWIFT'S RELA

TIONSHIP TO STELLA

From "Jonathan Swift," London, 1893, ch. vi. pp. 146-157.

Here is a good example of the summing-up of evidence: the specific facts are collected and stated: the evidence on which opposing assertions are based is examined and weighed ; and the case is compactly summed up at the end. So brief an argument must necessarily pass over detail without discussion: at best it can do little more than sum up a discussion that has been thrashed out at greater length. Its virtue is to be concrete and well massed. For further discussion of it, see the Introduction, pp. 70-72, 85.

BUT it is only right to say that those who have judged him thus harshly have proceeded on an assumption which would, if correct, have greatly modified this view of the question. If Swift was the husband of Esther Johnson, it may be admitted, without the smallest hesitation, that his conduct was all that his enemies would represent. It was at once cruel and mean; it was at once cowardly and treacherous; it was at once lying and hypocritical. In that case every visit he paid, every letter he wrote, to Miss Vanhomrigh subsequent to 1716 was derogatory to him. We may go further. In that case, we are justified in believing the very worst of him, not only in his relations with Stella and Vanessa, but in his relations

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